Some time after the completion of the Oscar-winning The Old Man and the Sea (1999), Petrov returned to his hometown of Yaroslavl in Russia to work on his next film. My Love was finished in spring 2006 after three years' work and had its première at the Hiroshima International Animation Festival on August 27, where it won the Audience Prize and the Special International Jury Prize. On March 17, 2007, My Love was theatrically released at the Cinema Angelika in Shibuya (Japan) by Studio Ghibli, as the first release of the Ghibli Museum Library (theatrical and DVD releases of Western animated films in Japan).[1]

In January 2007, Petrov announced that the film would eventually be released in theatres in Russia, combined with his other short films.[1]

The film's style is similar to that used in Petrov's other films and can be characterized as a type of Romantic realism. People and landscapes are painted and animated in a very realistic fashion, but there are sections where Petrov attempts to visually show a character's inner thoughts and dreams.

Because of Petrov's insistence on accuracy, especially where human emotions were concerned, about 20% of the film was made with a technique similar to rotoscoping.[2]

At the same time, it has faced criticism from some of Petrov's colleagues, including Ivan Maximov and Yuriy Norshteyn, who have accused it of putting technical achievement ahead of true artistry. Mikhail Tumelya, who accepted the awards at the 12th ORFAF for Petrov (who was not able to come either on account of illness, or because of worry about the audience reaction to his film[6]), summed up the criticism in the following words, attributed to a Buddhist monk: "there are more interesting things in the world than banal perfection".[7]